tter must come from some "great fat fellow"! He advises
her to write a little smaller, and says he loves to hear from her.
Then he whimsically reproaches her for not saying a word about his
last letter to her, nor answering a single one of his questions:
"That is not kind--it is scarcely civil!"

When little Theodosia was eleven her mother died, and henceforward she
was her father's housekeeper and dearest companion. She is said to
have been beautiful, brilliant and fascinating even from her babyhood,
and certainly the way in which she took charge of Richmond Hill at the
age of fourteen would have done credit to a woman with at least
another decade to her credit.

Burr had a beautiful city house besides the one on the Hill, but he
and Theo both preferred the country place, and they entertained there
as lavishly as the Adamses before them. Burr had a special affection
for the French, and his house was always hospitably open to the
expatriated aristocrats during the French Revolution. Volney stopped
with him, and Talleyrand, and Louis Philippe himself. Among the
Americans his most constant guests were Dr. Hosack, the Clintons, and,
oddly enough, Alexander Hamilton! Hamilton, one imagines, found Burr
personally interesting, though he had small use for his politics, and
warned people against him as being that dangerous combination: a
daring and adventurous spirit, quite without conservative principles
or scruples.

Burr is described by one biographer as being "a well-dressed man,
polite and confident, with hair powdered and tied in a queue." He
stooped slightly, and did not move with the grace or ease one would
have expected from so experienced a soldier, but he had "great
authority of manner," and was uniformly "courtly, witty and charming."
During one of those legal battles in which he had only one rival
(Hamilton) it was reported of him that "Burr conducted the trial with
the dignity and impartiality of an angel but with the rigour of a
devil!"

Gen. Prosper M. Wetmore, who adores his memory and can find
extenuation for anything and everything he did, writes this charming
tribute:

"Born, as it seemed, to adorn society; rich in knowledge;
brilliant and instructive in conversation; gifted with a
charm of manner that was almost irresistible; he was the
idol of all who came within the magic sphere of his
friendship and his social influence."

His enthusiastic historians fail to add that, th